February Fresh Friday’s Picks

Some fresh news and old links for this 1st February Friday. And despite my being a fulltime blogger for over 2 years now, I still feel Friday’s are the best day of the week.

In the local scene, some linky goodness:

• Join the WikiPilipinas Filipina Story Contest being sponsored by WikiPilipinas and supported Noemi and Dine.
• If you’d like to get a fresh and premium WordPress theme, McBilly is giving away a free Revolution Theme by Brian Gardner. Premium means it will cost you $79.95PHP 4,692INR 6,776EUR 76CNY 582 to buy the license from Brian.
• Lufthansa is discontinuing their flights from Manila to Frankfurt. Took this flight last December and was hoping I’ll be taking the same route this year when I get back to Cologne, Germany. Looks like I’m taking KLM via Amsterdam this time. I just wish I could try that new Airbus A380.
• Looks like some avid HappySlip fans are going to stage a rally or something. What’s worse is that they’re blaming the bloggers who made it to the list for the confusion.
• Ely asks why people hate “make money” blogs and websites. I agree that it boils down to usability and conflicts of interest. It kinda feels like MLM.

In foreign news, there’s some stuff I wasn’t able to cover last week but still worth the discussion:

• Sun Microsystems announced the acquisition of mySQL. All along I thought mySQL is open-source! *heh*
• Amazon will buy Audible Inc. (company that sells audio books and other digital content) for a reported $300PHP 17,606INR 25,425EUR 286CNY 2,183 Million. After AmazonMP3, now this. Amazon is gearing up against Apple iTunes; and it’s getting a lot of support from the recording industry.
• Shoemoney says “There is no customer loyalty in online commerce“. It shouldn’t be but current trends looks like it. Case in point: there’s just too many people jumping from NameCheap to GoDaddy to LiquidWeb to DreamHost to HostGator to 1and1 to PowWeb and back (whichever gives the best deals) — and it’s a proven marketing model online.
• Netscape browser gets another month of lease in life. Why bother? My RIP still says 1994 – 2008.
• After the 2007 4th quarter earnings report, Wall Street is unimpressed at Google’s performance. Stocks drop 8% and it’s now down to around $516PHP 30,282INR 43,731EUR 491CNY 3,756 from $750PHP 44,014INR 63,562EUR 714CNY 5,459 just a couple months ago. That has got to hurt. Yahoo! on the other hand is close to slashing over a thousand employees. Exciting times ahead. *heh*
• Motorola has announced its intention of selling its mobile phone division. Farewell to the Razr!

It’s the month of February once again — time to put all those affiliates for flowers and chocolates out! IslandRose, where art thou?!